Ellis: Common Core math leaves me stumped

Jan. 5, 2014

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There will be a great battle in the Legislature this session that Iíll be paying careful attention to. It involves the fact that I no longer can perform fourth-grade math.

Earlier this year, my daughter needed help with her math homework. I read the problem. Reread the problem. And reread the problem.

The words were in English, sure enough. But they might as well have been in Swahili.

Welcome to the Common Core State Standards.

Those are the new standards that South Dakota is adopting for teaching math and language arts in public schools. South Dakota isnít alone. Most states also are adopting Common Core. The clever education industry always is coming up with new pedagogical techniques and theories on teaching and learning, and Common Core is the latest, surefire, guaranteed program to jump-start our moribund public education system.

Just you wait, say the Common Core proponents. Soon enough, our American youngsters will be performing math on the same level as their peers in Japan.

Now, Iím neither for nor against Common Core. Iíve read persuasive arguments from both proponents and opponents about why itís good or bad. But, by nature, Iím a pessimist, so if I had to wager a keg of beer on whether it would succeed or fail, you know where that keg is going.

Iím sure the proponents are well-intentioned. Well, those proponents who arenít test makers, textbook companies or consultants, who all stand to make billions of dollars. The others, the Common Core believers, Iím certain they truly think theyíve found, at long last, the formula to raise up the lowly American student to international prestige.

We will hear a lot about Common Core this session. A group of conservative lawmakers will make a push to roll back the stateís adoption of Common Core. They have a number of reasons for why they oppose the new standards. Some of them are of the wild-eyed, black-helicopter variety, in my opinion. For example, I donít think Common Core is the start of some national movement to track students. After all, we already have the NSA for that. But the opponents do offer more sober critiques, such as concerns about whether Common Core lowers the bar on existing education standards, and its effect on local control.

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Itís not just the political right that has concerns about Common Core. So, too, does the political left, where there are worries that the new standards will do nothing to help struggling minorities in inner-city schools. They also are worried about the testing that will take place under Common Core, and how those tests will be used to monitor teacher performance, as well as school and student performance.

Common Core will replace No Child Left Behind, the George Bush-era reform that was supposed to make kids smarter. Weíre scrapping it because itís a failure.

A few years ago, when Hillary Clinton was touring the state on her bid to be president, her stump speech included some memorable lines. She vowed to make South Dakota and Midwest the ďSaudi Arabia of wind energy,Ē a line she repeated numerous times to great applause. But the one line that always garnered the most thunderous applause was her vow to repeal No Child Left Behind.

A national reporter who had followed Clinton across the country told me it was the same in other states. He thought it was because Clinton attracted a large number of teachers to her speeches. Teachers complained that No Child Left Behindís focus on testing was undermining education.

I remember thinking at the time that, yeah, you might not like No Child Left Behind, but it exists because public education was failing too many students.

You can say the same about Common Core: You might not like it, but itís here because public education in this country compared to others is a dud.

Common Core emphasizes critical-thinking skills and problem solving over memorization and other traditional aspects of education. I memorized the multiplication table in grade school, and Iím uneasy that my daughter is not doing the same.

From what I could gather of her homework assignment, she was supposed to solve the problems grouping numbers and drawing pictures. In other words, working on different concepts to solve the problem.

When I suggested that she stack the two numbers and solve the problem that way, I got a blank look. That is not, apparently, how they teach students to solve math problems under Common Core. So much for the simple algorithm.

So, as a parent, it seems reasonable to me to be concerned. Is Common Core just another doomed fad in the education reform movement, or is it the long-promised panacea?

If Common Core survives this legislative session, there will be a lot of parents monitoring its performance. After all, their childrenís futures are on the line.